I love music. And, being a “words” girl, I especially love listening to the lyrics. Oh, I remember laying on my floor in my college apartment singing Ani DiFranco, Tori Amos, Sarah McLaughlin, Indigo Girls…searching for life’s deeper meaning.
While my taste in music has changed a bit and now includes a lot of Country, I am still exploring the beauty and meaning in life. But, it’s funny, there are songs I know by heart, and singing them is kind of like “auto pilot”. I don’t always stop and really listen to what the song is saying.
The Little Man also enjoys singing. He’s 2 1/2, and he memorizes Tim McGraw songs like nobody’s business! We crack up listening to him sing loud.
But, yesterday, as he was reciting “My Old Friend”, something hit me as he sang the end of the second verse, “time gets slim”…it stopped me cold. I thought about how quickly time has gone by, and the list of phone calls I’ve wanted to make and letters I’ve wanted to send to catch up with old friends, even relatives. I immediately dumped that list out of my head and onto paper, and after the kids went to sleep, I began writing. Today I will begin making the phone calls.
After all, this is what life is really about- the stories, the people, the memories. I know we are all busy, and I am so very grateful for my Little Man singing sweetly, ‘My Old Friend’…
Here are All of the Lyrics to My Old Friend:
My old friend, I recall
The times we had hanging on my wall
I wouldn’t trade them for gold
Cause they laugh and they cry me
Somehow sanctify me
They’re woven in the stories I have told
And tell again
My old friend, I apologize
For the years that have passed
Since the last time you and I
Dusted off those memories
But the running and the races
The people and the places
There’s always somewhere else I had to be
Time gets slim, my old friend
Don’t know why, don’t know why
Don’t know why, don’t know why
My old friend, this song’s for you
Cause a few simple verses
Was the least that I could do
To tell the world that you were here
Cause the love and the laughter
Will live on long after
All of the sadness and the tears
We’ll meet again, my old friend
Goodbye, goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye
My old friend, my old friend
Goodbye, goodbye
Photo Props to Hannah Nicole
